A taste of Dirt

There's no denying that ODB was a charismatic (if unbalanced) guy, as Jaime Lowe details in Digging for Dirt, a fittingly entertaining new biography of the rapper out today. To find out what "ultimately defined" the late Russell Jones (a.k.a. Ol' Dirty Bastard, Joe Bananas, Dirt McGirt, and others), Lowe, the last reporter to interview the late Wu-Tang Clan star, tracked down everyone from RZA and Wyclef to Steve-O for a book that's equal parts history, mythology, and social anthropology. (She hits the peaks and valleys of his career, addressing everything from the time he saved a four-year-old from a car crash outside a Brooklyn recording studio to how he once fell asleep during a drug-possession hearing in New York and then called the prosecutor a "sperm donor.") Drawing parallels to James Brown's improv skills (via Blowfly) and including notes on how he dressed for his countless court appearances (via Robert Shapiro), Digging is perhaps this year's strangest and most endearing portrait of one of the music world's near-extinct beasts: the drug-devouring, shit-talking, criminal-artist. As the Wu would say, it "ain't nuthin' ta fuck wit'."

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (effective 1/4/2014) and Privacy Policy (effective 1/4/2014).The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Condé Nast.